For the record, I had a plan.

Shut it, I totally did. I had a bunch of freelance work in my queue, and I said to myself, “Self, we are going to be sane about this. We are going to sit, and work out timelines & process, and include that in estimates and establish a system for how we’re going to tackle off of this that will allow us to have sanity and get some sleep. Indeed Self, that is what we shall do.”

And, in a rare occasion of personal awesome, that’s what I did.

I know! I was so proud of me too!

…and then it all got shot to hell.

Then on a Thursday morning, I got a call from what I shall call Finance!Client

Finance!Client:

Hey, you know that two month timeline we had?

Claris:

….yes…

Finance!Client:

Well we know our old site sucks, and we’re going to a conference, so we wanted to see if we could move that up a little so we’d have the site ready for it.

Claris:

Okay… when is the conference, gentlemen?

Finance!Client:

Monday.

Claris:

I knew you were going to say that!

And yes, I actually did say that out loud. Freelancers everywhere: you’re welcome.

However, considering that the final tally for the contract will be slightly under what I make in two months worked at Museum!Co (which is no mean amount in itself, thanks be to art museums) I really couldn’t turn that one down, so away we went, and everything got thrown up in the air as I scrambled to finish the site for Finance!Client before all the other projects fell back down to hit the ground.

Which is why, as of last Wednesday, I have completed enough work that I am now caught up to… last Sunday evening. (except for Civic!Co. There I’m just kinda eff’d & will have to spend the next week & a half doing… pretty much nothing else.)

However, in the interim I had a couple thoughts that I figured I’d share with you, so here they are.

Things I would want you to know if they’d happened to me.

But they didn’t, so obviously this is allentirely hypothetical.

- you’ll get way further in your research if you wait until the end of the phrase to hit enter.
For instance, “Google table” gives completely different results than “Google tablet“, which was probably the information I was looking for anyway.psst – suck it, Apple! I told you if you’d made the iPad Mini I’d buy it but nooo… you couldn’t give me a half-page-sized fully functioning tablet. Well Google can, so what’s up with you?

- pay attention when ordering oar handles.
Why? Because it turns out that “1″ isn’t one set, but one single grip, and a bad time to find that out is when you’re opening the envelope for the first time* as Z is taking the old grips off only to hear you go, “Stop stop! Son of a bitch, I’m an idiot!”*because possibly I might have thought I was being smart by not opening the envelope until we did the switch, thus lessening my chances of losing anything.

Note: This would be especially bad if this was perhaps the second set of oars that I’d bought new grips for and maybe I’d correctly ordered the right quantity the first time around. Because if that had happened, and then I had still mucked up ordering the second set, that would be just… so stupid. If that had happened. Which, of course, it didn’t. But if it had, this entire story would be… less than optimal.

- don’t buy a Kindle while you’re in the middle of a work rush.
Otherwise, it will arrive on Monday, & you will walk past it for a week, still in its packaging because you just know that if you let yourself open up the box & get it sorted & put the darling red leather cover on, no actual work will get done because you’ll just start reading smutty books to decide which would be best to send to Anya* now that, thanks to the Kindle, no one will actually be able to see the content of what you’re reading.I’m still not entirely sure how this tradition evolved to its present state over the years, but when one friend lives in LA & the other lives in Toronto, sometimes the birthday & Christmas packages become… creative.

Instead, because you know you’d fall into the Tempting Pit of Reading Awesome and are trying to be really, really good, the Kindle will sit in a box on your living room floor which you will cast long, sad looks at as you rush past from bed to boathouse or work. It will squat, sad and alone and feeling unloved as you inhabit your couch while The Daily Show & The Colbert Report marathon from your Hulu queue in an attempt to make oneself feel as though you have some semblance of an idea about what’s going on in the world as your life consists of a backlit screen and the constant clicking of mouse & keyboard until you realize that the TV is distracting, and you go into full-on Sh*t Programmers Say mode.

At this point, it’s possible that you will not only have a despondent, still-wrapped Kindle anthropomorphically emoting annoyance in the way only electronics can, but you’ll also now have two canines balefully staring at you — after all, TV they can watch with their mommy, but once you put the headphones on — well, :sigh:… it’s like you’re pretending they’re not there.

So, ya know… that might have been my life last week if I’d decided to wait until a later date to set up the Kindle. If it had happened. Which of course, it didn’t, so hey — good thing there.

do NOT start watching The Biggest Loser on Hulu.
Because, if say, you work with k-walla, who loves Jillian Michaels, & randomly turn on season 6 for background noise one afternoon while working & setting your world up for the week, you just might become a-freakin’-diccted and end up staying awake with Sachiel until 1:30am the next Sunday night to make sure that Heba & Vicky don’t win because oh my god, they’re such bitches, and Michelle rocks!You might also already be 2 episodes into season 7, want to give Jerry a teddy bear, hope that Dan gets to stay forever, & think that Tara is the sh*t. Maybe.

Untapped potential: Jillian Michaels as a coxswain. I'm just sayin'.

…and in conclusion:

…that might be my world right about now. So – how’s y’all? What’d I miss?

The Biggest Loser! My gym is now a proud sponsor. And for the last month I have been going to the gym EVERY MORNING before J leaves for work. Except Sundays. And once he had an early work meeting. So that is new for me, the non-exerciser. I like The Biggest Loser. When they lose weight and end up at the weight I AM RIGHT NOW and I see what that looks like, and how much farther they (I) have to go, it is motivating without making me feel crappy. Because if I were away at a special camp I could do it too! But I am here so it’s like whatever I do is better than not doing anything. If I had a personal trainer I would prefer Jillian over Bob.

Miss you!

http://twitter.com/heroineaddct Claris

oh god, it’s like crack on a stick smothered in sugar how addicted I’ve become to that freakin’ show. I saw this pic series on Pinterest where they’re like:

Jilllian: Hey did ContestantName just throw up?
Bob: Yup. You know why? because I’m just that good.

And yes, I’m totally down with TeamJillian – she’s my kinda gal. Before I even watched the show I had a conversation with my co-workers where I went, “Dude, she totally used to be fat.”
And they were all, “How do you know?” (while immediately google-ing to see if it was true)
Me: “Because I got sixty pounds off my own arse that says you don’t get like that unless you’re afraid of going back. I can spot my own kind.”

But yay on the gym-attendance — what are you doing for cardio? And most importantly – is there a heart rate monitor in play?

Megdalen

I am doing the bike and the treadmill for cardio. I have a heel spur, but I am doing stretches and massages and it actually seems to be getting better. I even got a bra that is so amazing, it’s like, Katie bar the door, I can actually run in this thing wihtout knocking myself unconscious. (okay, so that was a comic book visual, but props to Title Nine sports Co. for making Big Girl bras…) No heart rate monitor yet. I am too cheap.

Megdalen

I am doing the bike and the treadmill for cardio. I have a heel spur, but I am doing stretches and massages and it actually seems to be getting better. I even got a bra that is so amazing, it’s like, Katie bar the door, I can actually run in this thing wihtout knocking myself unconscious. (okay, so that was a comic book visual, but props to Title Nine sports Co. for making Big Girl bras…) No heart rate monitor yet. I am too cheap.